Carla's Home
“Who hates pancakes?” I ask.
Carla's home from college and too drunk to drive, so I take us down the winding, wooded road home, stalling and grinding the gears on her ‘88 Nova. She goes to her parents’ bathroom to throw up and sleep on the tile floor. She knows I hate when she gets this drunk. Her mom comes downstairs to talk. Her eye makeup raccoons her eyes, and she wears an unsnapped bodysuit on her upper half, scrub pants on her lower half. Once her nicotine gum loses its flavor, she goes back upstairs to check on Carla.
When Carla wakes up, she comes down and starts cooking. I fell asleep alone in the quiet flicker of the projection screen TV, and the pans and bowls wake me. She makes egg-in-a-hole. She makes baby red potatoes with rosemary. She makes pancakes even though she hates them. “Who hates pancakes?” I ask.
I lie on the floor, plucking at the brown shag carpet while she plays Moonlight Sonata on the family piano. Her little sister comes in and I ask if she has any weed. Carla laughs and her sister says, “I'm only eleven.” Carla kisses me on the forehead and tries to get me to rub her bony feet, but I won't because feet gross me out. “Who hates feet?” she asks.
I cry when she goes back to school. I could visit her, I know. I do, once, but it’s even harder to take care of her in an unfamiliar place. I drive home in the middle of the night and I don't see her for another five years. No foot rubs, no pancakes. Care is our currency and I can't do it anymore.
Melissa Foley-King is a nostalgist, librarian, and MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore. She lives in Baltimore with her husband and her pets. Her work has appeared in Baltimore Fishbowl and the 60th Anniversary Issue of Welter.
